The present invention relates to an operation panel structure suitable for use in a mixing system having a multiplicity of monitoring signal channels, mixing system, mixing system control method and apparatus, and a computer program for mixing system control.
In recent years, the use of digital mixing systems has getting more and more popular, particularly in commercial-use sound equipment. In a typical example of the known digital mixing systems, sound signals picked up by microphones or the like are all converted into digital signals and subjected to mixing processing in an engine composed of a DSP array etc. Processed sound signals output from the digital mixing system include not only signals to be delivered into a concert hall or other place, but also monitoring signals to be delivered to individual human players or performers. Particularly, in an ensemble performance concert or the like, demands and requirements for the monitoring signals variously differ among the performers, so that there has been a need to supply different monitoring signals to the individual performers in accordance with the respective demands of the performers. An improved mixing system has been known which is capable of outputting monitoring signals of dozens of channels to satisfy performer-specific demands. Such an improved mixing system capable of outputting of monitoring signals of a multiplicity of channels is disclosed, for example, in “CSID Control Surface Instruction Manual”, published by Yamaha Corporation, Dec., 2000. Another improved type of digital mixer is known, for example, from U.S. Pat. No. 5,402,501.
In the case where monitoring signals of a multiplicity of channels are to be output from the mixing system, a human operator of the mixing system has to set mixing conditions of individual monitoring signals in accordance with demands of individual performers, which often tends to be quite heavy burdens on the human operator. Therefore, it is desirable that various panel operators be positioned or arranged on a console panel surface of the mixer in such a manner as to allow the human operator to readily manipulate the panel operators; however, it can hardly be said that sufficient consideration for facilitating the manipulation of the panel operators has been made in the conventional mixer apparatus. For example, in the conventional mixer apparatus, input operators for adjusting input levels to individual mixing buses are arranged in a vertical direction (vertical rows) in the order of input channel numbers while output operators for adjusting output levels of the individual mixing buses are arranged in a horizontal direction (horizontal rows) in the order of input channel numbers, and such an operator arrangement would present the problem that the panel operators are very inconvenient to use.